


The Five Stages of Grief

by Neyiea



Category: Epic (2013)
Genre: Background Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2013-05-29
Packaged: 2017-12-13 09:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/822548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MK works through the stages after her mother's passing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Five Stages of Grief

_Denial_

She’s procrastinating on her homework when she gets the call. She answers the landline out of boredom, expecting a telemarketer or a pre-recorded message.

Instead she’s greeted with the soft, sympathetic tones of a person whose job it is to give bad news.

“No,” she mumbles, her fingers clench around the phone and her knees feel weak. “No, this can’t be happening, you’ve got the wrong person.”

The nameless being on the other end gently instructs her to breathe.

“This can’t be right, no, the Doctors, they told us it was treatable. She was taking all her meds. She- she talked about what might happen if she- but that was just in case.”

She refuses to believe it, can’t let herself believe it.

Until she sees her mother’s body.

_Anger_

The Doctors say things like ‘it was more advanced than we thought’ and ‘it would have been a 50/50 chance with the treatment’, as if that’s supposed to make her feel better. She grits her teeth through their sympathetic explanations and digs her nails into her palms.

She hates them right now; hates them for not running enough tests, hates herself for believing they were in the clear, hates her father for not being here. A small part of her even hates her mother for ignoring the problem for so long.

She squeezes her eyes shut and bites her lip to keep herself from screaming.

_Bargaining_

“Please,” she prays even though she’s never believed in a higher being; she just wants someone, anyone, to listen. Her shaky hands clutch the funeral home and counselling pamphlets she’d been given and the tears just won’t stop falling. “Please bring her back. I’ll do anything. Just bring her back.”

_Depression_

She goes through the Wake and the Funeral in a daze, she doesn’t think she has any tears left inside of her to cry. She thanks everyone who offers their condolences, accepts every tearful hug, and feels entirely numb.

She doesn’t leave their house for a week afterwards. She curls up in her mother’s bed, just like she did when she used to get nightmares as a little girl, and sometimes if she closes her eyes long enough she can forget, for a little while, that her mother won’t ever be coming back to this place.

She puts off packing until the very last minute and only brings a single suitcase with her, everything else she puts into storage.

When she steps through the threshold of her childhood home, she feels like an outsider.

_Acceptance_

Her father is holding her tightly, like he’s never going to let her go again. He babbles on and on, asking the same question over again with different words.

She hugs him back just as hard.

“Yeah dad, I’m okay.”


End file.
